some assembly required
by dwarfstars
Summary: it's never the hero that needs saving. 14k, in progress
1. rescue

**AU. Takes place not so far into the future, in a world in which bionics and nanotechnology take the place of the various jutsu. The circumstances of the massacre of the Uchiha clan are a bit different. Future chapters are longer.**

**WARNINGS: Violence, blood, ****non-explicit sexual themes throughout. Irritatingly pretentious language in places.**

* * *

**Nov. 4, 2094**

**7:28 A.M.**

There's something derisive about silence.

It bounces off walls and ceiling with a vicious sort of enthusiasm, hovering inches from the floor for seconds before it zooms back up to laugh in its victim's ear. It's always there at the same time that it doesn't exist at all; a pulsating vapor that can be neither explained or driven away.

Not by this particular young man, at least.

The penitentiary center was mostly empty at this time of year. The Land of Iron, famed for its neutrality, had few political offenders to tuck away within the steel-walled compound built in the shadow of the Three Wolves, curiously curved mountains that added to the land's distinctive topography. The doors of the place were of thick metal, the beds hard and the cells unheated. Most would have shivered uncontrollably at this time of year and drawn their cotton prison-issue blanket about their shoulders for warmth, but this prisoner's body was completely still where it rested on the edge of the mattress, shoulders hunched with a rigidity that spoke clearly of strong emotion.

A narrow beam of light broke the pattern of dark and darker shadow within the room, cast from a high, tiny window directly behind the prisoner on the bed. It cut a line of color into him, revealing hair dark as the far corner of the cell and long enough to fall about his ears and neck, and skin the color of week-old ash. His face was cast into shadow by the new day's light rising behind him, and it was all sharp, uncompromising angles – firm lips that had withheld every word he might have wished to speak for himself during the trial three days ago; eyelids that had been tight shut since he came here, and brows furrowed just a little in thought.

At dawn, he would abandon the human curse – _feeling, such a burdening necessity -_ forever. As hard as he had fought to avoid capture, his movements had been so methodical, his steps so sure, and yet it was all so meaningless. All it had taken was a single glitch in the near-perfect machinery of his mind, and they had him in the palm of their hand. He was too wise to put up a fight, and too tired. Tired of everything, really. Most of all, he supposed – he was tired of missing _her._

Sakura, whose strength had always been in her compassion and whose heart had always been in her eyes. And such glorious eyes they were. Green, like the ocean on a calm day. He'd seen them spark into flame more than once, sometimes at things he'd said or done. It had been such a good feeling, now that he looked back on it all. Warmth and companionship after so long in the dark.

He'd blocked emotion out far too long for it to get a foothold in his heart. But there was a faint burning in his chest, and he knew it had to do with thinking of her. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing to feel a little before he died.

A key turned in the lock of the heavy door before him, the sound striking as sure and swift into the darkness as his kunai had into the throats of so many of the corrupt. The raucous noise completely obliterated any stray thoughts he may have had of Sakura. Today he died, and that was enough to think about for now.

Strangely, he found himself unable to think at all as he stood up and walked toward the door, using the sound of shuffling combat boots on concrete to guide his steps. One of the guards took hold of his left shoulder, chain-mail gloves making deep imprints in the skin under his prison uniform. His expression didn't change in the least as the other seized his right arm, hauling him toward the door. There was no mercy in their movements; but then, there had been no mercy in Sasuke's. A tooth for a tooth, he silently reminded himself, and there was no bitterness in the thought.

He half opened his eyes, instinctively wishing to see his surroundings - and couldn't help but grit his teeth in irritation as nothing but darkness streamed to the visual center of his brain. He closed them again, more ashamed than he would dare admit of his inward desire to see the sun one last time.

_Fool. Forgotten already, have you?_

They had taken his sight at the trial. Men whose hands smelt of soap and money; women who painted their already-fake smiles blood red, civilians with sunburnt faces and sore feet, they had all been there to watch as he was condemned. The criminal had no defense, and he did not attempt to make any for himself.

It wasn't far to the executioner's courtyard. Sasuke knew where they were before the snow-laden wind swirled about to hit him in the face. Perhaps it was premonition, or perhaps it was the amount of sand and snow pressed between his sandals and the concrete, increasing with every step.

He heard a quiet, affected cough to his left, but refused to flinch. Then another, this one a bit louder and very definitely male. A few of the most important and most corrupt military officials – ones that had been on his deathlist – had come to watch the execution. They were unlike anyone else Sasuke had come across in his travels, these officials. It was as though their souls had died within them, leaving nothing but cruelty to move and speak in their stead. Even without the special abilities his eyes had offered, he felt that they would be very easy targets. A half-dead man is easy to kill.

"Back to the wall!" Both guards gave him a sharp push in response to the order, and he stumbled toward one of the nearby walls. _It's been too long since I've eaten,_he thought, steadying himself with one hand against the brick surface next to him. He felt old blood crumble onto his hand, and nearly flinched at the heavy odor of fear surrounding the spot where he stood. Sasuke knew he should have been afraid, but he wasn't. At this point, he was beginning to doubt he'd even feel the bullets.

Straightening up slowly, he pressed his back to the wall. A protruding brick poked into his left shoulder, but he refused to flinch. He would die proud because he couldn't die happy.

_Think of what you've done. You've accomplished the deaths of much of the rot that has infected your government. You are…_

Four clicks from before him. They were preparing the guns. Why did they need four guns? He was one man, and a mortal at that. Perhaps they were afraid he'd come back to life. Perhaps Sasuke was a little afraid of that himself. Perhaps there was no fear at all, and the fresh surge of blood come to throb in his ears was nothing more than the effect of the cold.

Maybe the scent one of the women wore was the cause of this disturbance in his calm. It was a light, simple perfume, hardly something one of those porcelain-and-paint sculptures would have worn. It reminded him keenly of something. A discarded memory strained at the bonds holding it back from the logical part of his mind, and this time he saw no purpose in denying it entrance.

Green, spread like a blanket over meadow and forest alike. A lake tinted blue by the sky, pure enough to drink. The muted salmon and flaming coral of a sunset.

_Sakura._

Something warm sparked in his chest. And then it was gone, just as suddenly as it had came.

The scent remained in spite of it, so subtle it would hardly be distinguishable from grass and fresh air - were there any left in this frost-dead waste.

Sasuke's body tensed.

_"__Fire!"_


	2. interim

The order had come far too fast for him to physically react, not that he would have anyway. He waited in silence, his stomach curling into a knot in spite of his painfully acute determination to maintain control. Four shots resounded in the empty courtyard, and he tried desperately to find his peace in the split second it would take for them to strike through skin, bone, muscle, blood.

The bullets seemed to take an eternity to come to him, in spite of the fact that he knew it would only take a second to die. There was so much he had left undone, so much more unsaid – _Sakura,_ where was she, what would she think, would she cry, did she even remember his name? Had he given her reason to?

What about Naruto? The last he'd seen of the sunshine-haired boy, Sasuke's sword had been at his throat and their friendship (at least in the assassin's mind, anyway) was already as good as dead. At this point, he doubted his once-best friend would shed a single tear in mourning. It was better that way, wasn't it? He had told himself so very many times that he /_wanted/ _to leave a clean footprint on the earth, devoid of friends or acquaintances to soil his memory. But perhaps that thought was merely a product of the desire to make something in his fate-ridden life seem intentional.

Sasuke's finely-tuned senses told him that he wouldn't have time to draw one more breath before the bullets hit home, but he resisted the urge to duck while he still could. He'd had enough chances. Running now would only give them opportunity to call him a coward.

And what he felt was far from cowardice. That pleasant odor still lingered on the air, swirling down to meet his nostrils amid the snowflakes, gunsmoke and bits of ice – it gave him an odd sort of strength; something to remember the bright days by as he surrendered to the cold of a criminal's grave in the shadow of the Three Wolves.

Before he could so much as finish his last thought, something warm and heavy embedded itself into his side; a lightly-armored ribcage branded itself into the skin above his own, and nails dug into his upper arms and shoulders. His mind seemed to take a bit to register that he was falling, as though time had slowed down to accommodate this fresh confusion.

Sasuke's starved-thin body crashed heavily onto the snow-covered concrete, bones and muscle alike crushed under the weight of something else. Quick, hot breath warmed the tip of his ear, and there was the scent of the meadow again, tickling tantalizingly at the inside of his nose.

/_Am I dead?/_

The bullets hit just where his heart had been an instant ago, showering brick dust over both of the bodies crumpled on the ground. Before he could draw a breath to shout, a sharp object stabbed into the side of his neck. Silence buzzed in his ears, drowning out sound, bewilderment and consciousness alike.

–-

The firing squad would be startled into motionlessness by the strange ninja's sudden appearance, but the newcomer knew the effect of surprise would only hold for a few seconds, at most. She hadn't much time.

Rolling to her feet, she gripped the prisoner's limp body by the arms and hoisted it onto her shoulder. She stumbled briefly under his weight, and thanked heaven for her nanite-enhanced strength. Without it, carrying him as far as would be necessary was an absolute impossibility.

The masked ninja delivered a quick slap to the nerve receptor on her thigh. A jolt of electricity shot through the wires built into the light armor she wore. She felt it turn dense and stiff against the thermals underneath, and relief washed through her body along with the warmth the suit provided. The firing squad wouldn't be such a threat now.

Still, she had to get her prisoner out fast – before the gunmen inflicted further damage to his body. Now that she had a firm hold on him, he didn't feel nearly as heavy as before. His dwindling weight was yet another reason to worry, she supposed – but there was no time for worry now. The ninja ducked the first wave of bullets, inwardly pleading for just a moment's grace to prepare herself for a quick exit. Clenching her fists, she willed energy to flow from where it resided, balled up in a tight and rapidly swelling knot of closely-controlled emotion in her chest, to her fingertips.

In the dim white light of the oncoming day, Sakura's fingers glowed green. The new light reflected off the slits in her mask, revealing eyes the color of the open sea on a sunny day. And in the space of a breath, she was halfway up the wall, her own bright energy burning handholds in the mortar between the prison compound's gray bricks. At the top of the wall, her hand flashed briefly to her hip once more. The blade of a well-sharpened kunai gleamed as she slashed the barbed wire, and disappeared again as she leapt to the ground on the other side.

It was a farther fall than she'd estimated. Having come into the compound another way, she wasn't fully aware of the drop on the other side of the wall. The light emanating from her fingers went out as quickly as a candle in a blizzard, and she tried to regain herself even as they fell.

Though it was difficult to see through the pellets of ice and snow whipping about her ears, she could tell the ground was coming up fast. There wasn't much she could do to stop their fall, so she braced herself.

They hit hard, rolling twice in a spray of snow and black cloth. Losing her grip on Sasuke, the ninja flew into the snowpack several feet away. Spitting snow, she struggled to the surface just in time to see two guards making their way toward the once-prisoner.

Biting back the fear that had begun to creep into her throat, she hauled herself through the snow toward the unconscious criminal she'd 'stolen'. He hadn't stirred in the slightest since they hit the ground. Mouth hanging a little open, both palms flat against the snow where he'd fallen, he could just as easily have been dead as asleep.

Gunshots sounded. A bullet whistled past her ear, and another thunked into the snow next to Sasuke's left shoulder.

/_Anyone would be a poor shot in this weather. Good thing, too./_

Sprinting to Sasuke's side as quickly as she could in the knee-deep snow, Sakura pulled him back up onto her shoulders. "Please, _/please/_ don't be dead," she murmured, but the words were whipped away in the next gust of wind.

She briefly debated wasting a kunai or two on non-lethally wounding the guards, but decided against it. Ducking the next wave of gunfire, she took a quick glance about her, leaned into the blistering wind and ran.

The wind had only become colder by the time Sakura finally slowed her pace. She had no idea just how far outside the prison's walls she had taken them, but it was nearly evening by now and she knew well that night would mean death for both of them if she was unable to find shelter.

The snow, at least, had begun to let up. The air was clear and dry, stinging at Sakura's nostrils and the corners of her mouth even under the thick mask. She had considered taking it off once or twice, but quickly discarded the idea. There could still be guards on their tail, though she liked to think the erratic path she'd taken from the prison compound had shaken them off.

Now, she supposed, was time to think of how to execute the inevitably awkward words of greeting between her and her charge. He hadn't awoken yet, but he wasn't technically supposed to. There was still a vague seed of worry in her heart, in spite of the confidence she was supposed to feel after having completed such a clean escape – she hadn't had time to stop and get a pulse, and he _/had/_ hit the ground considerably harder than herself. If he did wake up, how would she break it to him that he was alive – that he was on the run once more?

"Don't kill me. I just saved your life."

Cracked lips curved behind the mask, and the barest hint of a laugh tugged at her shoulders under the armor. Where had her sense of normalcy gone?

She stared down at the snow passing under her feet, a little surprised by the unnatural mirth that had overtaken her. _/'Normalcy' died with the whole 'rescuing a criminal convicted of assassinating half the government' thing./_

Sakura was fortunate to have learned of the trial and execution in time. Even with all the innovative technology the last hundred years had provided, big news took a while to reach a small town like Konoha. And though Sasuke wasn't forgotten, the villagers hardly took time out of their day to make sure he wasn't dead. He had gone rogue; forfeited any protection his fellow ninja may have offered.

The day he left was permanently branded into her memory. She had long ago sworn never to forget, and she hadn't. It was the pain she carried away from their parting that had brought her to the capital, just a hair too late to catch Sasuke's trial.

Beyond that, it was all a blur of sweat, snow, and well-crafted lies. The trip to the Land of Iron had been very hard, but she believed it was worth it. She had to, if she wanted to keep her feet moving and shoulders strong.

She could have cried in the executioner's courtyard. She could have cried when she saw that they had taken his eyes, or she could even have cried the night before, when she crouched just outside the window of his cell and watched him spend his final night spinning his own shroud of cold and dark.

But it was not yet the time to cry, and Sakura was not one to waste tears. This was a time of beginnings, of adrenaline and sharp wind and heat strong enough, she hoped, to thaw even Sasuke's heart. He hadn't been able to contain his emotions as well as he would have liked everyone else to believe, she knew that much. Practicing calligraphy in blood on a dead politician's window wasn't something a sane, self-controlled person did.

She glanced at her wrist-compass, hitched Sasuke into a position more comfortable for herself, and forged onwards.


	3. stir

Nearly a full hour later, Sakura stumbled up the high concrete steps to one of the 'border houses.' These were small, but fully-functional buildings containing everything needed for three or more people to survive for a few days – basic restroom facilities, food, and water. Visited only once a year to maintain the utilities and re-stock the food stores , these houses were open to any traveler with a passkey.

And of course, Sakura hadn't one.

She stopped on the porch to take the first real breather she'd had an opportunity for since making her mad dash from the prison facility, dumping Sasuke unceremoniously in the snowdrift against the wall. Leaning against the door, she closed her eyes for a moment, contemplating what she'd just done.

_I just saved Uchiha Sasuke's life._

_I just carried a convicted criminal at least fifteen miles during winter in the Land of Iron._

"I just saved Uchiha Sasuke's life." The words felt like spring water on her dry tongue, and she laughed. This time, it was with genuine happiness, a feeling that lit up the tired, shining eyes behind the mask and pulled her crunched-together posture upright.

Digging around in her right hip pack, she quickly located one of the police-issue lockpicks she'd stolen before setting out on this journey. It wasn't anything like the lockpicks of fifty years ago, for the locks of today required a complex mixture of numbers, DNA, and holographic patterns to open. This particular key had been inordinately difficult to obtain, but she managed.

Pressing the card flush against the scanner stuck to the door, Sakura bit her lip and waited.

The sound of the lock snapping out of its place heralded her success. She put one hand on the door and pushed. It swung inward, admitting the tired ninja to a small, cold room. In the gathering dark, Sakura could make out the shapes of a stove in one corner, a cot next to it, and two doorframes set into the wall across from the entryway.

She resisted the urge to step inside for a closer look. Forcing herself to turn back to the cold, windy porch, she stepped over to where she'd lain Sasuke before unlocking the door. Sakura hooked her arms under his and dragged him off the bench, grunting under the extra weight. The nanites scattered throughout her tissue seemed to have weakened as the immediate danger disappeared. Perhaps she had overextended herself.

–-

Ten minutes later, a thoroughly weary Sakura sat on the mattress opposite Sasuke's in the second room off the main one. Cold, tired fingers fumbled at the ties of her mask, loosening it until she yanked it free and set it on the bed next to her. Sweaty strands of pink hair fell about her face and into her eyes, which normally would have irritated her into pinning them back. But now, she didn't feel very motivated to do much except to wake Sasuke and make sure he was alive and well. Then, perhaps, she would have the time and peace of mind to rest.

Slowly straightening up, she moved across the room to stand next to the unconscious prisoner. He looked exactly as he had when she rescued him, sunk deep in a sleep more peaceful than any he'd had in the past five years. It was easy to see that he had grown thinner, his face half concealed as it was by the thick, spiky hair hanging down over it. Sasuke had always possessed a pleasing aesthetic, much like a well-sculpted statue of a pagan god. And his physical beauty was clearer in person than any of the newspaper's mugshots had managed to portray. His unnatural thinness showed in the prominence of cheekbones and nose, alternately pointed and hollow, as though the chisel had faltered in the hand of the master sculptor who created him.

He wouldn't wake up on his own, not fully. The shot of specialized sedative she'd given him in the executioner's courtyard made that absolutely certain. She couldn't have had him waking up halfway to shelter – putting a dangerous man in a threatening situation makes him twice as dangerous, and she didn't have backup.

"Sorry about this," she murmured, placing her right hand over the center of his chest. Concentrating hard, she forced her remaining energy down the channels in her chest, arms, fingers. It sparked green at her fingertips.

–-

Sasuke awakened to darkness, as he had every day since the trial. But there was something different about it this time. It was considerably warmer. There was the even, quiet sound of breathing to accompany his own, and that scent, drifting on the air just as it had in the courtyard, before -

_before what?_

All he remembered was anger, quickly followed by apathy, darkness, gunshots, and an invisible, gigantic presence his tired mind couldn't quite pin down. Then something sharp had plowed into the side of his neck, and his mind was blank from there on.

He was dead.

"Sasuke."

There was a hand on his forehead now, a cool hand that somehow managed to be soft and callused at the same time. He reached up to grip its owner's wrist, taking note of the delicate, strong bones and tensed muscles under his fingers even as he tentatively released it again. He knew the voice. But it couldn't be, because she wasn't here. Sakura wasn't dead, and he wasn't supposed to be alive, so where did this put him?

When he opened his mouth, Sasuke's voice was hardly more than a low croak. His throat was rough and sore, though he couldn't remember if there was any reason for it to be. "How do you know my name?"

–-

_He doesn't recognize me._

Sakura knew she shouldn't have been surprised. Five years would have given him plenty of time to forget her, and he had changed so much since their last meeting. There had been many reasons he may have wished to purge the memory of her voice and touch from his mind.

But they still had history. How could he have forgotten it all?

"It's – Sakura."

–-

"Aa."

Sasuke remained completely still, but a sudden longing for his eyesight rushed through him, bringing in its wake a good deal of familiar and unwelcome emotion. If he could only see her – then he might be able to believe it was all real.

"Where am I?" It was a stupid question, but he honestly hadn't the slightest idea. If this Sakura was more than an illusion, she'd be able to tell him.

"We're in one of the border houses. Still in the Land of Iron." She drew in her breath, as if she were about to add something, then slowly let it out again. Indecision, Sasuke noted, was often accompanied by strong emotion.

He wasn't dead, then. Or the afterlife was nothing like what he'd expected. Besides, if he _was_ dead, he should have his sight. And as feeling came back to his chilled limbs and extremities, he was beginning to realize that he also ached all over. A slow, heavy throbbing was beginning to spread down his left leg, and his thigh was almost completely numb.

"Sakura... why are you here?"

"They were going to kill you."

"Were they?" There was no bitterness in his voice for once; only a quiet, morbid sort of amusement.

"I wanted you to live."

"Why?"

He could hear her swallow. "You have forgotten me." There was still the barest hint of a question in the statement, so he answered it.

"No."

A long pause.

Sasuke felt her fingers brush against his cheek, painting an intricate pattern in sparks below the skin. She'd never know it, of course, but she was the last thing he would have been able to forget. Naruto's brightness had been easy enough to conceal when he decided to drink of the night; Sakura's smile, her strength, her practicality, and above all, her damned /loyalty/ had always managed to stick with him. Perhaps that explained why she was his last thought as he succumbed to what he had believed to be fate.

"Are you hungry?" Sakura saw the pointlessness in discussing their current coexistence any longer, and wisely abandoned the subject.

"Mm."

"So am I."

He felt her fingers leave his face, and the floorboards creaked under her weight as she stood to leave the room. She hesitated between Sasuke's cot and the door.

"What is it?"

"I... I brought temporary replacements for your old bionics, if you want them."

Sight. Regaining the use of his ocular facilities might help him sort out this confusing situation a little faster. And he'd be able to see her – not that it mattered, of course.

Sakura was making her way across the squeaking floorboards again. He heard her zip open her hip pack and take something out.

"You know how to put them in yourself, don't you?"

He didn't dignify that with a response, instead extending his hand to take the new set of bionics. He'd had to learn how a long time ago, when he first set out on his own to avenge himself and his family. There was little he hadn't learned to do by himself since then.

Sakura put the case in his hand, folding his fingers around it in a gesture that was almost – Sasuke thought with a mixture of distaste and an unexplained pleasure - fond.


	4. provisional

Sakura made quick work of scouring the place's food stores for something that would be both filling and simple to prepare. Opening the single cupboard above the stove, she scanned the shelves.

_Canned beans, rice, pre-packaged ramen, more ramen, udon noodles, rice, canned vegetable medley, and salt._

She could have done with a little more variety, but at least there was something to eat. Sasuke was probably hungrier than he was letting on, as usual. He hadn't been well fed in the prison, that much she knew. And she doubted he'd been feeding himself much before his capture. There was something of the wolf about his thin face; the flush of success in vengeance had taken its toll on his body.

Sakura pulled the bag of rice off the shelf and lay it on the counter, then glanced back into the cupboard in the hopes of finding a pan or something of the sort to cook it in. To her pleasant surprise, the rice had been concealing a can of crushed tomatoes.

It was a small thing. But it was something, perhaps, that would bring Sasuke out of his self-induced daze enough to speak to her. Like they used to, back in the village of the Hidden Leaf. Before he had left, before she and Naruto had gone after him, and long, long before he had first tried to kill her.

She sighed, the sound oddly loud in the static silence of her shelter. Most likely, she was overestimating the impact something as simple as a favorite food would have on Sasuke. Nothing much affected him anymore.

Pushing the matter into an empty corner of her mind, Sakura focused all her energy on completing the meal.

–-

When the neural endings in the bionic eyes Sakura had given him snapped into place, Sasuke released a low, relieved breath. As little as he usually allowed anything to bother him, the loss of his sight had been a significant handicap.

His new eyes slowly came into focus on the bed opposite his own. It was simple and narrow, but neatly made with several layers of blankets. He vaguely wondered why he hadn't thought to use one of the border houses during his latest foray into the Land of Iron; this one appeared exceptionally well maintained. And if the smell issuing from the main room was any indication, its cupboards had also been recently replenished.

Sasuke didn't want to think about the implications of the fact that he was here. With Sakura. Free.

He had done too much to simply stop and lead a normal life. Before this, his life had had purpose – first to kill, and then to die. Everything was as it should have been. The cycle continued, the assassin was executed and the world, hopefully in a less corrupted state, returned to the unchecked insanity he had dared to call wrong.

Now, he would have to find a new one. If he wanted to return to his old life, he would have to shake off Sakura. And as repulsive as he knew the thought of staying should have been, he wasn't quite sure he wanted to leave.

Before he could ruminate over the matter any further, Sakura pushed the door open with one knee, balancing a bowl of something hot and good-smelling in either palm. "Dinner," she announced nonchalantly, seating herself on her own bed before offering Sasuke a bowl.

She was so beautiful, even in the tired, messy state she now adopted. He had forgotten just how beautiful she was; staring at the few pictures he'd brought with him from Konoha had hardly done her justice. Most of her pink hair was bound up in a ponytail at the back of her head, but the rest fell about her face and into those glorious sea-green eyes. They were exactly as he had remembered them in the executioner's courtyard; well worth a man's dying moments to see. Beauty be damned. He had other things to focus on just now.

"Thank you, Sakura."

Only half hoping the words carried the full meaning he intended to put into them, he took the bowl and silently tucked in. He wasn't thanking her for the meal so much as for everything else. Carrying him how many miles – must have been twenty or so to the nearest border house, not to mention the raging snowstorm going on outside – was near impossible. And she had done it. For him.

He did have one thing to ask her about.

"You jumped the wall to escape the prison compound, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"How far did I fall?"

–-

Sakura froze still, the spoon trembling slightly in her hand hardly half an inch above her untouched food. She had fully intended to give him a full medical checkup once they had eaten, but now she was suddenly afraid of what she might find. "Farther than I thought it would be," she confessed, voice calm to mask the unexplained explosion in her stomach.

Hunger still burned at her middle, but she doubted she could eat anything at all anymore. Setting her bowl on the floor, she moved to stand in front of Sasuke, allowing her eyes to wander over his frame in the hopes that whatever was bothering him was visible on the surface. "Are you in pain?"

He was silent for a long moment. "I can't feel my left leg."

Sakura drew a deep breath, pulling herself together as best she could. _You could 'save' him, but you had to get him hurt in the process. Great job. _

She wasn't fully sure she had enough energy left to heal him. Of course, she could always try – but injuries to the bone had a tendency to be far more difficult to heal than surface wounds. "Is there anything else?"

"Mm."

Sakura took the liberty of assuming that meant 'no'. But she had to make sure.

"I'd... like to do a full checkup, if you don't mind."

His eyes found hers and held them, locking both Sakura and himself in place for what seemed an eternity. If she judged correctly, it was a simple exchange of trust, a way to determine whether the other remembered old grudges well enough to leave them behind.

Finally, he nodded, breaking the stare. Sakura left the room a bit too hastily, throwing something over her shoulder about having to wash her hands.

–-

In the bathroom, she closed and locked the door carefully behind herself. Before so much as picking up the soap, Sakura gripped both sides of the sink, staring into the small mirror hung above it. She looked utterly disheveled – hair ratted and sweaty, smudge marks on her neck and about her collarbone from crawling through the prison's sooty air ducts. Dark crescents rimmed her eyes, which seemed somehow duller than they had been at the start of her journey. Sasuke would never...

What was she even thinking? What Sasuke thought of her didn't matter at all. She had saved his life, and that was all she should care about. He owed her nothing for it, and thus she should expect nothing in return. Besides, she thought she'd given up all of that foolishness a long time ago. There was no time and no need to be concerned over her appearance.

She pulled herself back into a standing position, shaking her head to snap herself out of it. Taking the soap and flicking on the faucet, she set to work cleaning herself up.


End file.
